Yes Sir, Mr Johnson
by badjade
Summary: In the original story of Portal, Cave Johnson mentions that he was poisoned by the moon rocks- but he was apparently the only one to take ill. What actually happened behind the scenes?


I would understand if you inferred that I was an unassuming person. A dainty, optimistic young woman- flowing brown hair, red satin tie. I spent years on the soft look in my eye, the caring voice that begs you to tell me all about what's been eating at you.

That's not to say I don't have soft spots. Chell, that young girl, always so eager to run out there so that she may one day return to the overworld. Silly thing… she doesn't even know that Aperture was a blessing compared to that world. And yet I sense as if she is special to me… an odd feeling.

I should start from the beginning. My name is Caroline, and I worked as a secretary for the CEO of Aperture Science. He was charismatic, his rants could work up a cold, heartless criminal, but the fool was like clay in my hands. No matter how powerful, a man's a man, and a man has his weak spots.

Cave Johnson had a set of brilliant minds and a lot of money- emphasis on _had_-, a god complex, and rampant anger issues. Whatever his ideas were, they'd create, no matter how God awful. A little robot that shot bullets- smart enough, until he made them _spring loaded_. Ha! ha! Those bullets couldn't bruise a banana! He filled them like you would put apples in a bucket. They should have gotten jammed easily, but somehow, the engineers pulled it off. Aperture is an example of a wonderful idea run by an imbecile who thinks he's doing what's right. It happens more often than you think…

My goal was to run Aperture myself, but you know how societal mentality is- oh, she's a _woman_, she couldn't possibly run a business. To Hell with them, have they seen how Johnson runs it? He's a disaster waiting to happen! At least if I ran the company, it had a chance for survival. It just goes to show how fragile their egos are, they'd rather let themselves crash and burn and _god forbid_ the girl hold the key to staying afloat.

So my plan was this- get on Cave's good side, show him how intelligent I was, then once he wrote me in his Will I would poison the son of a bitch.

It was easy enough to trick the man into thinking he poisoned himself by accident. _Moon rocks! Brilliant idea, Mr. Johnson! It won't put us into debt, not at all._ He held a white stone in his hand that day, chuckling and tossing it in the air like a top.

"Wouldn't it be interesting if moon rocks had healing qualities?"

"I wish it did, but I doubt it, Caroline."

"You haven't tested it yet."

"I could always get the test subjects to try it out. We're working on making something outta this right now. Something about gel and portal conductors, you'll have to ask them what nonsense they're up to."

"With all due respect, Mr. Johnson, if we found out it was the cure for something greater- Leukemia, maybe- we would make millions. We could pay off any and all dues we have, and you'd have a higher ratio of test subjects who survive your courses."

His eyebrows furrowed together in silence, and I knew he was thinking about it.

"In addition to that," I took a pause to breathe, "we need to find a good use for them quickly. Our business transaction won't stay private for long. What if I'm right, and Black Mesa finds out and patents it before we can?"

He was on board from that moment on. The sucker- he was so eager to try it out, he ground up the rock and ate it then and there. He _ate_ it! I thought maybe, he'd hesitate and remember that he didn't even have Leukemia, but luckily I was mistaken.

That same day, I poisoned his coffee. Enough to make him sick, but not enough to kill him immediately. I needed to secure a place as the head of Aperture, and if he didn't say it, I wasn't going to risk it.

He spoke over the testers' intercom that he was ill due to the moon rocks- it was almost as if he had forgotten it was my idea in the first place. I have to commend him for being in denial about my almost obvious betrayal.

It took until next year for him to finally break.

"I will say this - and I'm gonna say it on tape so everybody hears it a hundred times a day: If I die before you people can pour me into a computer, I want Caroline to run this place."

The day I waited for had finally dawned. I thought I was only going to be the CEO- that was the plan- but even _better_. He planned to put me in a computer! An immortal, all powerful computer, connected to the entire building… those morons. That day, I told him I put almond coffee creamer in his drink.

Arsenic was always my favorite neurotoxin.


End file.
